One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

"The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave"? The later is surely true, but nothing is being done to care for our troops when the survivers return physically or mentally damaged. And if you believe the former is true, read below to learn about how our Constitution has now been virtually destroyed.

Does The United States Still Exist? — Paul Craig Roberts
March 26, 2016 | Original Here | Use original if you wish to receive his newsletter via email

Does The United States Still Exist?An address delivered to the Libertarian Party of Florida on March 23, 2016 in Destin, Florida

Paul Craig Roberts

To answer the question that is the title, we have to know of what the
US consists. Is it an ethnic group, a collection of buildings and
resources, a land mass with boundaries, or is it the Constitution.
Clearly what differentiates the US from other countries is the US
Constitution. The Constitution defines us as a people. Without the
Constitution we would be a different country. Therefore, to lose the
Constitution is to lose the country.

Does the Constitution still exist? Let us examine the document and come to a conclusion.

The Constitution consists of a description of a republic with three
independent branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, each with
its own powers, and the Bill of Rights incorporated as constitutional
amendments. The Bill of Rights describes the civil liberties of
citizens that cannot be violated by the government.

Article I of the Constitution describes legislative powers. Article
II describes executive powers, and Article III describes the power of
the judiciary. For example, Article I, Section 1 gives all legislative
powers to Congress. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to
declare war.

The Bill of Rights protects citizens from the government by making
law a shield of the people rather than a weapon in the hands of the
government.

The First Amendment protects the freedom of speech, the press, and assembly or public protest.

The Second Amendment gives the people the right “to keep and bear arms.”

The Third Amendment has to do with quartering of soldiers on
civilians, a large complaint against King George III, but not a practice
of present-day armies.

The Fourth Amendment grants “the right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures” and prevents the issue of warrants except “upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
seized.” The Fourth Amendment prevents police and prosecutors from going
on “fishing expeditions” in an effort to find some offense with which
to charge a targeted individual.

The Fifth Amendment prohibits double jeopardy, self-incrimination,
the taking of life, liberty, or property without due process and the
prohibition of seizing property without just compensation.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees speedy and public trial, requires that
a defendent be informed of the charge against him and to be confronted
with the witnesses, to present witnesses in his favor, and to have the
assistance of an attorney.

The Seventh Amendment gives the right of trial by jury to civil suits.

The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration of certain rights in
the Constitution does not deny or disparage others retained by the
people. In other words, people have rights in addition to the those
listed in the proscriptions against the government’s use of abusive
power.

The Tenth Amendment reserves the rights not delegated to the federal government to the states.

The Tenth Amendment is a dead letter amendment. The Third Amendment
protects against an abandoned abusive practice of government. The
Seventh Amendment is still relevant as it allows damages in civil suits
to be determined by a jury, once a protection against unfairness and
today not always the case.

The other seven amendments comprise the major protections of civil
liberty. I will examine them in turn, but first let’s look at Section 1
and Section 8 of Article I. These two articles describe the major
powers of Congress, and both articles have been breached. The
Constitution’s grant of “all legislative powers” to Congress has been
overturned by executive orders and signing statements. The president
can use executive orders to legislate, and he can use signing statements
to render sections of laws passed by Congress and signed by the
president into non-enforced status. Legislative authority has also been
lost by delegating to executive branch officials the power to write the
regulations that implement the laws that are passed. The right that
Section 8 gives to Congress to declare war has been usurped by the
executive branch. Thus, major powers given to Congress have been lost to
the executive branch.

The First Amendment has been compromised by executive branch claims
of “national security” and by extensive classification. Whistleblowers
are relentlessly prosecuted despite federal laws protecting them. The
right of assembly and public protest are overturned by arrests, tear
gas, clubs, rubber bullets, water cannons, and jail terms. Free speech
is also limited by political correctness and taboo topics. Dissent
shows signs of gradually becoming criminalized.

The Fourth Amendment is a dead letter amendment. In its place we
have warrantless searches, SWAT team home invasions, strip and cavity
searches, warrantless seizures of computers and cell phones, and the
loss of all privacy to warrantless universal spying.

The Fifth Amendment is a dead letter amendment. The criminal justice
system relies on self-incrimination as plea bargains are
self-incrimination produced by psychological torture, and plea bargains
are the basis of conviction in 97% of all felony cases. Moreover,
physical torture is a feature of the “war on terror” despite its
illegality under both US statute and international law and is also
experienced by inmates in the US prison system.

The Fifth Amendment’s protection against deprivation of life,
liberty, and property without due process of law has been lost to
indefinite detention, executive assassination, and property takings
without compensation. The Racketer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act
(RICO) passed in 1970. The act permits asset freezes, which are takings.
The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act passed in 1984 and permits police to
confiscate property on “probable cause,” which often means merely the
presence of cash.

The Sixth Amendment is a dead letter amendment. Prosecutors routinely
withhold exculpatory evidence, and judges at prosecutors’ requests have
limited attorneys’ ability to defend clients.The “war on terror” has
introduced secret evidence and secret witnesses, making it impossible
for a defendant and his attorney to defend against the evidence.

The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive bail and torture are routinely violated. It is another dead letter amendment.

It is paradoxical that every civil liberty in the Bill of Rights has
been lost to a police state except for the Second Amendment, the gun
rights of citizens. An armed citizenry is inconsistent with a police
state, which the US now is.

Other aspects of our legal protections have been overturned, such as
the long standing rule that crime requires intent. William Blackstone
wrote: “An unwarrantable act without a vicious will is no crime at all.”
But today we have crimes without intent. You can commit a crime and
not even know it. See for example, Harvey Silverglate, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.

Attorney-client privilege has been lost. The indictment,
prosecution, and imprisonment of defense attorney Lynne Stewart is a
good example. The DOJ prevailed on her to defend a blind Muslim regarded
by the DOJ as a “terrorist.” She was informed that “special
administrative measures” had been applied to her client. She received a
letter from the federal prosecutor informing her that she and her
client would not be permitted attorney-client privilege, and that she
was required to permit the government to listen to her conversations
with her client. She was told that she could not carry any
communications from her client to the outside world. She regarded all
this as illegal nonsense and proceeded to defend her client in
accordance with attorney-client privilege. Lynne Stewart was convicted
of violating a letter written by a prosecutor as if the prosecutor’s
letter were a law passed by Congress and present in the US code. Based
on a prosecutor’s letter, Lynne Stewart was sentenced to prison. No law
exists that upholds her imprisonment.

Our civil liberties are often said to be “natural rights” to which we
are entitled. However, in historical fact civil liberty is a human
achievement that required centuries of struggle. The long struggle for
accountable law that culminated in the Glorious Revolution in England
in the late 17th century can be traced back to Alfred the Great’s
codification of English common law in the 9th century and to the Magna
Carta in the early 13th century. Instead of issuing kingly edicts,
Alfred based law on the traditional customs and behavior of the people.
The Glorious Revolution established the supremacy of the people over
the law and held the king and government accountable to law. The United
States and other former British colonies inherited this accomplishment,
an accomplishment that makes law a shield of the people and not a weapon in the hands of the state.

Today law as a shield of the people has been lost. The loss was
gradual over time and culminated in the George W. Bush and Obama regime
assaults on habeas corpus and due process. Lawrence Stratton and I
explain how the law was lost in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Beginning with Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century, liberals saw
the protective shield of law as a constraint on the government’s ability
to do good. Bentham redefined liberty as the freedom of government
from restraint, not the freedom of people from government. Bentham’s
influence grew over time until in our own day, to use the words of Sir
Thomas More in A man for All Seasons, the law was cut down so as to better chase after devils.

We cut down the law so that we could better chase after the Mafia.
We cut down the law so that we could better chase after drug users.
We cut down the law so that we could better chase after child abusers.
We cut down the law so that we could better chase after “terrorists.”
We cut down the law so that we could better chase after whistleblowers.
We cut down the law so that we could better cover up the government’s crimes.

Today the law is cut down. Any one of us can be arrested on bogus charges and be helpless to do anything about it.

There is very little concern in legal circles about this. The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) does attempt to defend civil
liberty. However, just as often the ACLU is not defending the civil
liberties in the Bill of Rights that protect us from the abuse of
government power, but newly invented “civil rights” that are not in the
Constitution, such as “abortion rights,” the right to homosexual
marriage, and rights to preferential treatment for preferred minorities.

An attack on abortion rights, for example, produces a far greater
outcry and resistance than the successful attack on habeas corpus and
due process. President Obama was able to declare his power to execute
citizens by executive branch decision alone without due process and
conviction in court, and it produced barely audible protest.

Historically, a government that can, without due process, throw a
citizen into a dungeon or summarily execute him is considered to be a
tyranny, not a democracy. By any historical definition, the United
States today is a tyranny.

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About Me

B.S. in Physics, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1960 Ph.D. in Physics, Brown University, 1966. Fellow, American Physical
Society. Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Fellow, American Ceramic Society. Member, Geological Society of America, Research Physicist at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, DC,
1967-2001. Fulbright-García Robles Fellow at Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, 1997. Invited Professor of Research at Universités
de Paris-6 & 7, Lyon-1, et St-Etienne (France) and Tokyo Institute
of Technology, 2000-2004. Adjunct Professor of Materials Science and
Engineering, University of Arizona, 2004-2005. Consultancy: impactGlass
research international, 2005-present.
Winner, one national and two international research awards and honored
by Brown University with a "Distinguished Graduate School Alumnus
Award." Author, 198 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, Principal Author of 114 of these.